I am a Mercenary
by Riff-Raff-Wrote
Summary: The soil and grass soaked up my blood as I lay dying, but all I could think about was his last words. What happens to an A.I when they die?
1. Chapter 1

**Hey, this is my first story... That I have written down. Shut up. I will post the first three chapter in three days, Today, tomorrow, and the day after. After that I will ATTEMPT to update once a week. Emphasis on attempt… Please enjoy and review. I swear I am better at writing stories then I am at author notes. Sort of. Constructive Criticism is preferred over you just telling me that I suck.**

 **Disclaimer: Sometimes I like to pretend I own something worthwhile… but I don't :/ (Unless an X-Box counts...) RvB Characters all belong to Rooster Teeth, and sadly not me.**

Volume One: Chapter One

Many years ago…

 _Cold weighed down on my body. My hand reached down to my side, and numb pain shot through me as my fingers pressed against the wound._

 _There was so much blood. Pooling around my waist, sinking into the soil, glinting on the grass. I wondered how long I would stay here until I died. Hopefully not long._

 _I was so alone._

 _I missed my family, Michael had always known how to make me laugh. But I also missed my friends. I squeezed my eyes shut, the events that had just happened playing over in my head._

 _I had reached toward him as the door descended. His eyes locked with mine. He lay on the ground, above him the sword glowing an eerie blue. I think I had screamed his name when the door hit the ground with a dull thump._

 _And I think that Jack had screamed my name as he was ripped apart with the ship._

 _Now it was quiet, this world holding its breath after the horrific events it had just witnessed. My mind was vacant, with no company, no help, no Jack._

 _I opened my eyes to take in this world on last time._

 _This world I didn't even know the name of._

 _This world that was soaking up my blood_

 _But none of this mattered, as my eyes closed on the cloudless purple sky behind my cracked visor, and the blood and life drained out of me._

 **Agent Washington** **:**

Carolina was too quiet since Epsilon had sacrificed himself. This was bad. In her silence I could feel the anger building up inside of her. She was ready to snap.

His absents was quickly noticed after the ship had been cleared of enemy soldiers. Tucker had not fared well, either.

A spark of pain ignited behind my eyes, my hands clenched on the civilian clothing I was packing into my bag.

At first we had just thought that he was resting after the battle. Or maybe he was just damaged. Maybe Tucker had only received some flesh wound that eventually made him pass out. Then Delta appeared. Apparently Epsilon had fragmented to help them through the battle.

I finished stuffing the last of my belongings into the bag. Pushing it of the cot, I lay down and close my eyes.

I was worried about Carolina's silence; this was almost as bad as when I had told her about York. Almost. I guess you get close to someone when they are living in your head, but I hadn't realized how much she had come to care for the A.I. I didn't know how to help her. With the other Freelancers I had had a relationship. I knew how to console her about their deaths. Epsilon, however, was a different story.

Another flash of pain shot through my head.

The others weren't holding up well either.

Tucker had stopped with his inappropriate jokes, and when he spoke his voice was dull. Luckily he had not suffered the same as I had when Epsilon fragmented while in my mind, but he I still had caught him wandering the halls during sleepless nights.

Caboose held a routine of leaving his room to eat, then returning. The Reds were not nearly as depressed at Epsilons destruction, but they did feel sad and left the Blues alone in their mourning. They all had grown a bond, even if it was small, it was still there.

I stayed neutral. I never trusted Epsilon enough to rebuild the bridge he had destroyed, along with my mind. I thought Epsilons sacrifice was the right thing for him to do. I did respect it. But his death was the only thing I could think about.

I sat up and swung my legs over the side of my bed. He sacrificed himself. I grabbed my duffle and began the walk to where Kimble was waiting with the ship. Suddenly, yells and cheers filled my ears as I passed one of the rooms where celebrations for the liberation of Chorus were still taking place.

Their War was over.

I wonder what it feels like.

I had stopped to stare at them, striped of their armor, drinking excessively, dancing, smiling. When's the last time I had been that happy? That carefree?

I began walking again, feeling the familiar weight of my armor shift with me as I moved. I would probably die in this armor. I stopped again. I looked at the world around me, tinted yellow from the visor of my helmet. I didn't even notice it anymore. The weight of the armor, the tight under suit, the bullet wounds that scared my skin, the Helmet that changed the colors of the world. It was all the norm to me. I shook my head of these thoughts and continued to walk.

Why would an A.I sacrifice itself to save its friends? Can an A.I even have friends? Can an A.I feel enough emotion to create a bond like that?

I know the answer to that. Memories flashed through my mind, the yearning for a woman I had never actually met that had filled my thoughts for years. Epsilon had died, to me at least, years ago. So why was this all I thought about?

The ship was really only big enough to fit the Reds, Blues, Carolina and I. It was a gift from Chorus for everything we did for them. For everything we sacrificed for them.

From what I could tell it was only meant for living in, which meant no battles in space for us. As it came into my vision I saw a feminine figure outlined against the plain white of the ship. That would be Kimball, in her last attempt to make us stay.

I walked towards her. She stepped aside, and I stood next to her shuffling my feet awkwardly until she spoke. "You don't have to leave. You guys can stay; we are in need of leaders at the moment." She chucked awkwardly. I looked at her before shaking my head.

"No." I searched my mind for an acceptable excuse. They weren't good leaders? They were barley soldiers? "Staying here would be too painful for them." Yeah, that was it.

"How about you?" Me? I couldn't even think of leaving the reds and blues. They were all I had. Carolina and them. My family.

"I can't leave them." They need me! I think… I felt sorry for Kimball. She was alone, and I could tell that she needed someone to help her lead Chorus, but we were not the right place to look.

"Fine." She paused, and I noticed her posture straighten as she tried to recover some professionality. "We found these encrypted documents on the Charon ship." She handed me a flash drive. "In case you want to look into it. We can't help, Corus needs time to rebuild itself, but..." She stopped talking, but I knew what she was implying. _But if you want revenge._ I took it and closed my fingers around it.

We stood there uncomfortably until everyone else showed up, all of us ready to finally leave this planet. I looked behind us, Polomo, Bitters, Smith, and Jensen were all standing there, holding balloons and signs. I guess they came to say goodbye.

"Tucker! Tucker!" I winced at Polomo as he tried to catch Tuckers attention.

Tucker spun around, took out a hand gun and shot one of the bright red balloons Polomo was holding. "Shut the fuck up Polomo." Tucker said, then grabbed his bag and walked into the ship.

"You could have at least shot a blue balloon" Sarge mumbled, then followed him onto the ship, followed by Grif and Simmons. One by one the rest of us followed them.

Before we took off, I looked out one of the windows down on the 'elite team.' I allowed myself a smile. Chorus was going to be just fine.

I wish the same could be said for us.

 **Ok, so that's the end of chapter one. There will be more tomorrow. If you see any grammar or spelling mistakes point them out so I can fix them. My computers space bar doesn't work all the time, and that's the excuse I'm going with for any weird hybrid words.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hey! Chapter Two! I want to thank anyone who has made it this far. I hope you getting into the story! Sorry about the late update… things happened… ANYWAY! Please enjoy and review! And sorry for the swears, but I assume that Tucker would swear a lot in his head, and I want to keep it real.**

 **Disclaimer: I own nothing. But my infinite number of OC's. Seriously, it's a problem. I'm forgetting all their names…**

Volume One: Chapter Two

 **Lavernius Tucker** **:**

"We _have_ to find them!" This was getting ridiculous. Ever since Wash decided to be an idiot and show Carolina the fucking revenge drive it was all she talked about. Like, seriously. I need a fucking break.

Church was gone for good. There was no way to possibly bring him back this time. She just needed to accept that and deal. She didn't even know him that well! Well, at least, I'm pretty sure she didn't. But that didn't matter, because he was gone, and there were no loopholes this time...

"They need to pay for what they've done!" She yelled at Wash. He seemed to shrink and take a small step back. I actually felt sorry for him. No body deserves Carolina's wrath, even a stupid fucking idiot.

"Carolina, I'm not saying they don't have to! I'm saying…" He didn't get far into his sentence before Carolina interrupted him.

"What your saying is wrong!" She pushed Wash, and he stumbled backward and hit the wall. Well, there goes freedom of speech in Carolina.

"I just wanted breakfast." Grif muttered into his cereal. Simmons patted his back at rolled his eyes. I stared down at my own bowl. The actual cereal was tasteless, and the milk was some weird powdered shit that did _not_ taste at all like milk. Donut enjoyed it though.

We all just stared quietly at the arguing Freelancers. My head throbbed, and not the right one _or_ in the right kind of way.

"We need time! They need time!" Wash retorted, and Carolina got deadly quiet and stepped close to Wash.

"We. Don't. Have. Time." Carolina hissed, her angry green eyes boring into Wash's ice blue ones. Wash sighed.

"Fine." We all simultaneously let out a groan, and Carolina glared at us, before her eyes softened slightly.

"You can all have the rest of today off, but tomorrow we begin the search." She then left the kitchen into the hall where all of our rooms were kept. We all winced when we heard the door slam. There was silence for a moment.

"Way to stay strong Wash." I snapped at him.

He just gave me a dry look and sank into a chair. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and began massaging his temples. "Well, maybe next time you can try."

That shut me up pretty fast.

 **Dick Simmons** :

She was going to kill me.

She was going to rip out my throat with her bare hands, or something else equally terrifying and painful.

"You found something?" Carolina said next to my ear. She didn't seem too mad. I tried to gulp in air. Words. Say something idiot!

"God, just choke it out Simmons." Grif snapped. He really wasn't a patient person. I shot him a glare from under my helmet.

"Well, based on their previous recorded transmissions, they are planning on retrieving some kind of weapon from one of these three buildings." I pointed at three coordinates matching with names that were just random letters and numbers.

SS18302

SS45280

SS21735

"How do you know that they are buildings, and not a map to buried treasure or something?" Grif asked. Idiot.

"I CAN'T SEE ANYTHING" Donut shouted from outside the room. Everyone had tried to cram into the small room.

"Treasure?! I want to find buried treasure! Then I could be a pirate!" Caboose said. We all just ignored him.

"Because…" I started.

"ARG" Caboose yelled, pretending his hand was a hook. I just shook my head and began again. At least he wasn't wailing about Church.

I opened my mouth again to speak, but- "WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT" Donut yelled, as if we couldn't hear him from _two feet away._

"In their conversations they refer to them as buildings." I said quickly, before anyone else could interrupt me. Could they not ask intelligent questions? I guess his question was justified though, because I hadn't really specified that they said that they were buildings. Was I defending Grif? Good thing Sarge couldn't read minds. My eyes shot over to him. He was glaring at me. Umm….

"Wait a minute. Those are Freelancer storage sites." Carolina said, leaning closer to the computer. This computer really was a beauty, with a holo pad, a slot for an A.I, (which everyone ignored) several screens for 2D display, and about ten different machines in the wall that were hooked up to it. I had a nerdgasm when I first saw it, and Grif of course made fun of all the 'geek words' I used to describe it. The only bad thing was that the whole thing was crammed into a small room off the kitchen.

We were all attempting to fit in, and it was not working. "Maybe we should continue this conversation elsewhere?" I said. We poured out of the little room into the kitchen.

"When I was looking for the Director," Suddenly this became uncomfortable. Grif coughed.

Caboose whispered, loudly, to Carolina, "You mean when we were playing hide and seek- "

"Yes." She said, cutting him off. "Anyway, I looked into buildings similar to those. 'SS' stands for Standard Storage. They just kept useless equipment there, like the paint, guns, ammo, stuff like that."

"So, if Charon Industries is so interested in something in one of these buildings-" Wash started, but I cut him off.

"There is something important that the Director hid there, and they are sending a team out to get it."

"Yeah. No shit Sherlock." I gave Grif another glare. He gave me a knowing smirk. Fatass.

Previous to Many Years Ago…

 _He ran at me with a cardboard box on his head, pretending that it was a helmet._

" _Michael." I said, trying to be stern but smiling sadly. "What is this?" I glanced up and saw my mom rushing toward us through the crowd._

 _He tilted his head back and I could see his ice blue eyes through a crudely cut slit in the box. "I'm coming with you." He said quietly, his voice cracking._

 _I smiled at him, trying not to cry. I had to stay strong for him. He was so young and innocent. I kneeled and pulled him into a tight hug. I looked at Mom over Michaels shoulder. She looked scared. "Mikey, you can't come with me. It's too dangerous for a little boy like you."_

 _He violently shook his head and pressed his face into my neck. I sighed and rubbed his back. Other families around us were in similar positions, Younger siblings clung to the legs of their older brothers or sisters, parents who were too old for the war looked down on their kids with watery eyes as they took in the uniform._

 _I released Michael from the hug and stood. Mom stepped forward and pulled me into a hug. "You're going to be fine. You're my strong little girl."_

" _Apparently I'm big enough to be sent off to war." I muttered into her hair. She gave me a soft pained chuckle. She pushed me away but held me at arm's length. I tried to memorize her face, the lines that stayed at the corners of her eyes even after she had stopped smiling over a year ago, the streaks of grey in her pitch black hair, the slight light that returned to her eyes when she looked at me or Michael._

" _You're going to be fine." She said again, but this time I think she said it more for herself. I nodded, and she wiped tears from my eyes. "Stay strong." She pulled me into another hug, and I closed my eyes, trying to rid my head of the images they showed us for 'preparation.' Vehicles and people burned, bullets flew through the air, explosions frozen in time, and on the other side, a never ending Alien army._

 _Stay strong. Stay strong. I strapped myself into the seat and looked back at the large group of people who were there to say goodbye to their loved ones. My eyes ran through the crowd, but I couldn't find Mother and Michael. When would be the next time I see them?_

 **Okay… That's Chapter 2. Please stay tuned for more! See ya soon!**


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